Incremental and differential backups

Incremental backup is a storage friendly way of storing multiple backup time points. Incremental backup involves making an initial complete backup of your desired files followed by making backups of only the files that have changed since the previous backup time points. Incremental backups are performed with software that is capable of determining whether files have changed since the last backup time point. Differential backups involve backing up all the files that have changed since that last full backup every time they are performed. Restoring a system with differential backups requires only the last differential backup and the original full system backup. Restoring a system with incremental backups requires the entire chain of incremental backups that lead back to the original full system backup. Therefore, restoring a system is slightly faster with differential backups than with incremental backups (however with many modern backup programs you will not really notice a difference unless there are hundreds or thousands of increments). Incrementally backing up your system will take less disk space than backing up differentially. This is because each differential backup has to contain all of the files that changed since the original full system backup. In a sense each differential backup is equivalent to the entire chain of incremental backups. Each subsequent differential backup will be larger and larger.

Incremental & differential backup software
1. Genie Backup Manager Home v8 is a full featured backup program that makes it easy to backup any part of your computer (files, email, application setting, registry,...) as well as backup your entire system. It is not as easy to make a full system backup with Genie Backup Manager as it is with Acronis True Image. With this program you can backup to any media including an FTP(file transfer protocol) site. Genie Backup Manager supports backup archive encryption making FTP backup safe even for sensitive data. Genie Back Manager is one of the best backup solutions that has pretty much every feature you could want. There are lots of predefined one click backup sets so that you can backup email, My Favorites, Firefox, QuickBooks, and many more. There is a 30 day free trial for Genie Backup Manager Home v8.

2. Acronis True Image 11 Home is one of the best programs for making an exact copy of your entire system (hard disk image). You can also use Acronis True image to backup your important files, email, and applications. Acronis allows you to backup to many different types of media including a FTP site. Unfortunately, Acronis True Image 11 Home does not support archive encryption which makes backing up to an FTP site less desirable (however it does have password protection for your backup archive). Acronis True Image Echo Workstation does support backup archive encryption but it costs more than the Home version. Acronis can make incremental and differential hard disk images as well as incremental backups of selected files and folders. There is a 15 day free trial for Acronis True Image 11 Home.

3. Cobian Backup 8 is a completely free backup utility that can do incremental and differential backup. Cobian Backup cannot backup your entire system (hard disk image) but it can do FTP backup with encryption. Cobian Backup is relatively simple yet it can be configured to do what most users need. There are no predefined options to backup email or application data (can be done manually). Restoring files also has to be done manually. Cobian Backup can also easily configured to synchronize various folders (choose differential backup type and uncheck "Create separated backups using time stamps"). If you do not wish to buy one of the above two options, this program is for you.